Our mixed week in London

Good morning!

For most of the week, I couldn’t tell if l liked London. We’d have a fine day followed by a very bad day followed by a great day and it left me with some emotional whiplash as I sorted through my feelings. London aside, it was a hard week. Grant and I bickered more than we ever have the first few days here as we adjusted to our new life; learning how to live with each other in teeny tiny hostel bathrooms that are shared with dozens others, in our teeny tiny living space (AKA our bunk bed, the storage locker, and the space under the bottom bed). And, even though we love it and have elected to do it for 6 months, travel is still stressful!

After some time to process, I’ve decided that I do like London-but I only came to that realization once we got out of central London and I saw what more London has to offer aside from guards at Buckingham Palace (personally, standing in the sun waiting for them to change places is not my cup of tea). I think the lesson we learned immediately is: London is too big too wing it. Naturally. The one time I dont make a detailed itinerary. Most cities I’ve been to have had boroughs, different pockets with different vibes. None have been as expansive as London. Did you know London is 607 square miles and is home to 32 boroughs? That’s more than 25x the size of Manhattan and twice as large as the whole of New York City. There are more than 250 miles of track for the tube and I feel like I’ve, personally, ridden on half of them. 

In addition to being surprisingly massive (surely, the surprise is a direct result of our lack of planning-if you recall my last, naive email), London was also, staggeringly crowded. Part of my mixed feelings are from rushing through their world class museums with a wave of crushing people at our backs; feeling too anxious to attend Carnival with 2 million others; fighting our way through crowds of thousands at all the big sights. But before you write the city off for that, you should know, we did go on their summer three-day weekend-a major travel weekend. Our bad.  

The respites we got from the crowds, however, were 🇬🇧lovely🇬🇧. In a snap decision, when we fled Carnival, we hopped on a train to Brighton. Brighton isn’t in London, but a seaside town a little more than an hour away. Some of the locals there told us that it’s called London by the Sea. We got off the train expecting something like Myrtle beach and were so delighted to find something much better, and harder to compare to. Since we had escaped the city last minute, late in the afternoon, the light was already turning on the pastel store fronts, warming the otherwise chilly afternoon. Seagulls were flying overhead and smaller crowds moved to and from the bright, eclectic stores leading to the beach and pier. Brighton was, also, touristy, but in a much more enjoyable and surprising way. 

Carnival rides on the pebble beach

The wooden planks on this pier buckled and warped in some places under the weight of two arcades and a dozen carnival rides. We were leery we’d fall into the sea the whole time.

My favorite day and crowd respite, by far, was the day we went to Hampstead Heath, one of the many boroughs of London. After a 20 minute tube ride, we wandered into, what felt like, a walkable small town, and immediately found their eponymous park (or the village name may be the eponymous one-not sure…). There were sweeping vistas of the London skyline, winding forest trails, and bathing ponds! Real, true ponds with algae and frogs and cattails, frigid temps and Brit’s swimming around! America could never. Later that evening after enjoying the park, the makers market, and wandering the picturesque neighborhoods, we took the tube back into the hubbub of the city and went to a very local pub for a British sing-a-long. Which is exactly what it sounds like. We got two pints, and then two more pints, and sat down in a cozily cramped bar to listen to British men and women sing whatever the pianist in the corner deigned to play. She’d begin the first few notes of a song, and one of the two ring leaders would stand up and begin to sing the lyrics in a deep baritone-all while we were still working out what the song was. The whole bar would join in and sway slightly on their stools. Grant danced with an adorable old Scott with a cane who half shouted her life story to him over the music. I sang Goodbye Yellow Brick Road with another traveling American, who-mercifully- carried me through it. It was such a warm and fuzzy experience to be welcomed by the locals and to enjoy something that’s a weekly ritual for them. When the singing was over, they very sincerely thanked us for joining them and singing along-they said sing-a-alongs used to very common but have died out in the last hundred years-they’re one of the few pubs that still does it. Thanks for the recommendation, Emily!

Views of London from Hampstead Heath Park

Swimming ponds; swimmers were in the frigid water before 11am

We could afford this place, probably

Something about this picture feels so British to me

We did a lot more than that in the 6ish days we were in London. We saw all The Sites (from the outside only; this city has entrance fees! Damn!); we went to Kew Gardens (another highlight that I could go on and on about); we traveled to Camden Market (overwhelmingly tourist-y and with a lot of mass made cheap-y stuff), the Borough Market (delicious food but also overwhelmingly busy); we had proper English tea and cakes (I actually thought the tea culture would be stronger there. They had a coffee shop on every corner, if you can believe it.); window shopping in Selfridges (the fanciest department store I’ve ever been in; they could smell the broke on us when we walked by the Cartier and Rolex displays); and parks and parks and parks. 

A beautiful door in Richmond, on the path to Kew Gardens

Some random beautiful building

Inside the palm house at Kew Gardens

The Palm house. The humidity was rough-I worry about how I’ll survive south east Asia

One night, as we took the bus past Big Ben, a drunk Londoner asked out loud “okay but what is inside the tower itself?” And I thought that was a great question

The impression that I will take with me from London is, more than anything, of the people. While we didn’t interact with as many locals as I would have liked, the ones we did talk to were 🇬🇧lovely🇬🇧. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but they were far kinder than I would have imagined. Coming from a town that is jaded and burnt out on tourists, I didn’t expect to be received so warmly by one of the world's largest tourist destinations. People were so helpful-answering any of our transportation and queue (that’s line for us Americans) related questions without any irritation or pretense. People often mistook us for locals (not sure what we did to deserve that honor) and upon our correction, were, surprisingly, curious about our life in America and how it differs from here in the UK. 

All week though, I couldn’t shake the feeling of something being missing for us in London. Despite the kind people and beautiful sights, I was left wanting for more connection, more contrasting cultural experiences. Something different-or at least something authentic. It’s a tricky thing to immerse yourself in a culture you don’t belong to if you don’t have any inroads. Also, it’s the most expensive place we’ve ever been and that’s not fun when you’re trying to make your money last 6 months- a sentiment shared by most in the dumpy hostel we stayed in-which is, upsettingly, the most expensive accommodations on the entire trip.

We arrived in Malaga, Spain last night, our gateway to the rest of Andalusia. I’m excited to embrace the cultural richness of Spain, to activate that part of my brain that holds the 18 years of US public school Spanish classes, and for the cheaper prices (tapas here I come). I am not, however, excited to leave the pleasantly cool London weather for temps nearing 100. Stay tuned to see if I survive the heat or dry up like a sponge in the sun. 

Here’s some things we’ve deemed worthy of keeping track of on this trip…

Miles I walked this week: 56.3

Hats with American sports teams logos: 49

Hasta luego!

-Amelia